economy of dnd

[Greenfield]

No, Hoffa had mercenaries.

 

[S'mon]

2) A cook expected to prepare meals for "large groups" (probably 10+) definitely isn't "untrained" in the day laborer sense. Even if you do consider an untrained cook on par with a porter, why isn't the clerk on the table an "untrained" clerk who can only scribble down a few things and get paid 1 sp? Or the animal tender someone who just stands around and stables horses for 1 sp? The chart doesn't state its assumptions and isn't really detailed enough to draw conclusions.

You have convinced me that a senior cook should get 2-3sp/day. The scullions get 1sp.

Re the clerk - obviously it's because literate NPCs are rare, so writing ability is a valuable skill. I probably would have the stableboy earn 1sp/day, he gets a lot more free time than the labourer, it evens out. A skilled animal handler gets more.

 

[Eldritch_Lord]

I disagree that you have more elements of the Roman Empire and the Renaissance instead of purely medieval ones.

The dark ages and the mediaeval ages, are not so simplistic as one might think.

It's not a matter of complexity; D&D has several fundamentally different assumptions even taking magic out of the equation.

Moreover, the church's forceful presence, can easily relate to the various churches in the various settings. Even though one might argue that the Roman/Greek polytheism is more close to D&D because of its many deities, the mediaeval christian church, accompanied by the inquisition and with its fearful aura, is much closer to the general theme of most churches/deities in D&D, to their influence on the population, and to their influence on economics.

Au contraire. While many lawful churches are given a Spanish Inquisition spin for plot hook purpose, there is nothing in D&D comparable to the Catholic Church. Priests of D&D religions do not have any inherent political power, or at least no more than any other powerful person merely by virtue of being a priest. The common people do not base their entire cosmology on the teachings of a single church. Crusades against evil in D&D are actually motivated by a desire to quash out evil rather than being motivated by a desire for land or status. There is no such thing as the divine right of kings. Polytheism is vastly different from monotheism, and the only thing the medieval Catholic Church and D&D religions have in common is the templar-esque paladin, and that's specifically because the knight-in-shining-armor trope was brought into the game in one piece.

Even though D&D incorporates many cultures and paradoxes that derive from magic and other historical periods, that does not change the fact that D&D is mainly based on the Mediaeval times.
Greyhawk, Forgotten Realms and Dragonlance, to name the most popular settings, are all based on medieval Times, not the Romans nor the Renaissance.

First of all: Greyhawk and the Forgotten Realms? Medieval? You must be joking. With all of the magic and unusual creatures in both worlds, they're only "based on medieval times" in the same sense that the modern world was at one point "based on medieval times." Greyhawk is obviously much closer to that baseline, having been explicitly given a background of a powerful Empire that fell, a series of warring city-states, and so forth. However, the technology of Greyhawk and other D&D settings are still Renaissance-level rather than Medieval-level (plate armor, polearms, water mills, advanced ships, telescopes, etc.), the governments are not feudally-based nor are they intertwined with the churches to nearly the same degree, the existence of low-level magic mimics Renaissance developments in medicine and science (even villages have 2-3 1st-2nd level casters by DMG demographics), and so on. I can see why you'd say Greyhawk has a Medieval inspiration, sure, but to say it is based on the Medieval era moreso than the Renaissance era is laughable.

The Forgotten Realms, though? Not medieval in the slightest. Flying cities, full-blown mageocracies, and meddling gods blow that idea completely out of the water at higher levels, and even at low-to-mid levels the world is vastly different from Medieval standards--the systems of government rarely even vaguely resemble monarchies, the major cities have 2 to 3 times the populations of rough real-world equivalents, religion doesn't inform peoples' lives like Catholicism did in the real world yet almost everyone is devoted to a religion due to the Wall of Souls, and so on.

You have convinced me that a senior cook should get 2-3sp/day. The scullions get 1sp.

Re the clerk - obviously it's because literate NPCs are rare, so writing ability is a valuable skill. I probably would have the stableboy earn 1sp/day, he gets a lot more free time than the labourer, it evens out. A skilled animal handler gets more.

Actually, by the rules, every class except the barbarian (and some ACFs like the savage bard) are literate, which is another difference between D&D and medieval settings--the literacy rate is 90+% and writing is important enough that Forgery is its own skill...which brings up the issue of a universally standard currency, logical exchange rates for different denominations, and so forth.

 

[S'mon]

Actually, by the rules, every class except the barbarian (and some ACFs like the savage bard) are literate...

Every PC class. You seem to have a lot of trouble distinguishing between PC-stuff and NPC-stuff.

 

[Cyberzombie]

I disagree that you have more elements of the Roman Empire and the Renaissance instead of purely medieval ones.

The dark ages and the mediaeval ages, are not so simplistic as one might think.

As Eldritch Lord noted, I'm not arguing that medieval Europe is simplistic. I'm arguing that it isn't D&D. You have knights, but they don't act as a vassal to a king in any of the standard settings. They don't have a fief and they don't lord over serfs. Yes, that's not all there was to the dark ages or the later medieval era, but it's not in the basic settings in any real way.

The Capitals and big cities at the time did not lack in complexity or trading plethora. Moreover, the church's forceful presence, can easily relate to the various churches in the various settings. Even though one might argue that the Roman/Greek polytheism is more close to D&D because of its many deities, the medieval christian church, accompanied by the inquisition and with its fearful aura, is much closer to the general theme of most churches/deities in D&D, to their influence on the population, and to their influence on economics.

Not in the basic settings and not in any campaign I've ever played in! Sure, you could do that, and I'm sure many DMs do. But most deities in most campaigns only wish they had a tiny bit of the influence that the Christian church did in medieval Europe. If anything, D&D is even more polytheistic than the Roman Empire ever got. In the real world, you never really had priests dedicated to as *single* god -- at least not if they acknowledged the existence of other gods.

Even more strongly, though, D&D wizards would be flat-out impossible in a truly medieval setting. There was NO educated class except the clergy and, to some extent, the nobility. You could not have a school of wizardry, because there's no rival educational establishment to the church. Now, you could make an interesting pseudomedieval where the scholars in monasteries are wizards and they are the spellcasters of the established church. But it would be pretty far removed from a standard D&D setting.

Even though D&D incorporates many cultures and paradoxes that derive from magic and other historical periods, that does not change the fact that D&D is mainly based on the Mediaeval times.
Greyhawk, Forgotten Realms and Dragonlance, to name the most popular settings, are all based on medieval Times, not the Romans nor the Renaissance.

D&D has pseudomedieval elements pasted on to settings that are really something else. Greyhawk City is flat-out Renaissance, down to being run by the Thieves' Guild, to take one example. Well, Renaissance by way of Fritz Leiber -- Greyhawk has more than a little bit of Lankhmar in it. Oh, sure, you may run into a knight in shiny armor in Greyhawk, but he's not a medieval knight, no matter how much his armor glimmers.

 

[Jimlock]

It's not a matter of complexity; D&D has several fundamentally different assumptions even taking magic out of the equation.

Au contraire. While many lawful churches are given a Spanish Inquisition spin for plot hook purpose,

Oh, it's for "plot hook purpose" and not based on Medieval times, got it.

there is nothing in D&D comparable to the Catholic Church.

No, you must be joking. Does "crusades" ring a bell?

Priests of D&D religions do not have any inherent political power, or at least no more than any other powerful person merely by virtue of being a priest.

Priest and wizards are the most powerful figures in all settings. Both "Medieval-Dark Ages/fantasy" archetypes, no question about it. Behind almost every single official campaign there is some wizard or priest with great power, political or otherwise, capable of leading vast armies into war, at the demand of a greater deity.
One example: Verminaard, Dragonlance's big villain is a high priest of Takhisis. You will find such examples in every setting, and in every setting's background.

Currently, I'm playing the Forgotten Realms 3.5 trilogy (Cormyr - The Tearing of the Weave, Shadowdale - The Scouring of the Land, Anauroch - The Empire of Shade). Up until now it's all about the church of Shar trying to undo the Weave (Mystra). The political power of Sharrans is uncontested.

Crusades against evil in D&D are actually motivated by a desire to quash out evil rather than being motivated by a desire for land or status.

That's what the real crusaders were given to believe as well, they were out to destroy others because they were led to believe that their god was the right one. That's how you can play D&D as well. People fighting the wars are pawns, just like in real life. I don't play D&D so Black & White, nor is there written anywhere in the books that I should play like that. You are free to play D&D as you please. You can play LOTRs or you can play Game of Thrones. It's up to every individual group. Nothing is necessarily better than the other. If you wan't to play D&D like that, you are free to do so by all means, but please do not say that "your" way, is the "right" D&D way.

Polytheism is vastly different from monotheism, and the only thing the medieval Catholic Church and D&D religions have in common is the templar-esque paladin, and that's specifically because the knight-in-shining-armor trope was brought into the game in one piece.

Are you also suggesting that only the Paladin derives from the Middle Ages?

Let's take one class at a time and see whether they derive from the Middle Ages, the Romans or the the Renaissance.. shall we?

1-Barbarian. I believe the word "CONAN" is a sufficient.

2-Bard. Wikipedia: In medieval Gaelic and British culture (Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Isle of Man, Brittany and Cornwall) a bard was a professional poet, employed by a patron, such as a monarch or nobleman, to commemorate the patron's ancestors and to praise the patron's own activities.

3-Cleric. What do you need to be convinced that the D&D cleric is mainly based on the Medieval Catholic Clerics and Priests? With their armors and maces i don't see much of a difference from the "templar-esque paladin"...

4-Druids. Historically, Druids appear in many a period of the Human History... from the Iron Age to the Late Middle Ages. Taking into account the approach of D&D on Druids (just check the artwork), I'd say they are mainly based on the Celtic-Dark Ages archetype.

5-Fighter. Sure Fighter is a generic class. Still all you have to see are the weapons and armor in the game. While there are weapons from before and after the Medieval Age, most of them "scream" Medieval.

6-Monk... I don't really care about that one... Still, it must be said that there is nothing Roma-esque or Renaissance-esque about it...

7-Paladin. You explanation is sufficient.

8-RAnger. This one screams "Aragorn"... Perhaps you are willing to argue that Middle Earth is not a Medieval based setting?

9-Rogue. The Rogue can be seen as pretty generic too... Still as far as D&D is concerned, just check the art, and tell me if that isn't Medieval.
Robin Hood is written all over the place...(ok Robin is both a Ranger and a Rogue...)

10-Sorcerers & Wizards. I won't tire you. Gandalf and Merlin should be enough.

First of all: Greyhawk and the Forgotten Realms? Medieval? You must be joking.

Again, i think it's you that must be joking.
Just check what Gygax and Greenwood have said about their worlds. (It's funny how Elminster looks just like Gandalf isn't it?)

With all of the magic and unusual creatures in both worlds, they're only "based on medieval times" in the same sense that the modern world was at one point "based on medieval times."

I do not understand how you relate Magic to Renaissance and not the Medieval Ages. If in your games magic is a substitute for technology, that is your game, and not D&D. Magic, superstition and mysticism is more of a trait of the middle ages ...not the Renaissance. Renaissance signals the birth of rationalism. Superstitions die and man now believes he can do "everything on his own". Since the Renaissance, god has already begun to lose ground.
"Burn the which!" was a phrase mainly used in the Medieval Ages... not the Renaissance.

However, the technology of Greyhawk and other D&D settings are still Renaissance-level rather than Medieval-level (plate armor, polearms, water mills, advanced ships, telescopes, etc.), the governments are not feudally-based nor are they intertwined with the churches to nearly the same degree, the existence of low-level magic mimics Renaissance developments in medicine and science (even villages have 2-3 1st-2nd level casters by DMG demographics), and so on.

Plate armor?

Polearms? Obviously they were mainly used in the Late Middle Ages and Renaissance, still i should remind you that the MAJORITY of weapons in D&D derive from the Middle Ages

Watermill?

Are you sure you are not confusing Middles Ages with the Stone Age?

Advanced ships, telescopes? Sure... may I quote my self from my previous post?

Even though D&D incorporates many cultures and paradoxes that derive from magic and other historical periods, that does not change the fact that D&D is mainly based on the Mediaeval times.

I can see why you'd say Greyhawk has a Medieval inspiration, sure, but to say it is based on the Medieval era moreso than the Renaissance era is laughable.

I believe I've already pointed out what is laughable and what isn't...

The Forgotten Realms, though? Not medieval in the slightest. Flying cities, full-blown mageocracies, and meddling gods blow that idea completely out of the water at higher levels, and even at low-to-mid levels the world is vastly different from Medieval standards--the systems of government rarely even vaguely resemble monarchies, the major cities have 2 to 3 times the populations of rough real-world equivalents, religion doesn't inform peoples' lives like Catholicism did in the real world yet almost everyone is devoted to a religion due to the Wall of Souls, and so on.

Flying cities?

Right... I forgot how they appeared during the Renaissance for the first time...

Magocracies and meddling gods

Yep... forgot how they appeared during the Renaissance too...

(On a side Note: The catholic church & the Inquissition, was a magocracy if you think about it? )

Actually, by the rules, every class except the barbarian (and some ACFs like the savage bard) are literate, which is another difference between D&D and medieval settings--the literacy rate is 90+% and writing is important enough that Forgery is its own skill...

I'll just quote S'mon on that one

Every PC class. You seem to have a lot of trouble distinguishing between PC-stuff and NPC-stuff.

which brings up the issue of a universally standard currency, logical exchange rates for different denominations, and so forth.

are you SURE you are not confusing the Middle Ages with the Stone Age?

Eldritch_Lord, I suggest you think twice before using phrases like:

I can see why you'd say Greyhawk has a Medieval inspiration, sure, but to say it is based on the Medieval era moreso than the Renaissance era is laughable.

with people you don't know, or have not talked to in the past.

A little about me: I have read enough about European History during my studies, to know what I'm talking about.

D&D is MAINLY Based on Middle Ages.

I'll finish by quoting once more a line from my previous post:

Even though D&D incorporates many cultures and paradoxes that derive from magic and other historical periods, that does not change the fact that D&D is mainly based on the Mediaeval times.

 

[Jimlock]

As Eldritch Lord noted, I'm not arguing that medieval Europe is simplistic. I'm arguing that it isn't D&D. You have knights, but they don't act as a vassal to a king in any of the standard settings. They don't have a fief and they don't lord over serfs. Yes, that's not all there was to the dark ages or the later medieval era, but it's not in the basic settings in any real way.



Not in the basic settings and not in any campaign I've ever played in! Sure, you could do that, and I'm sure many DMs do. But most deities in most campaigns only wish they had a tiny bit of the influence that the Christian church did in medieval Europe. If anything, D&D is even more polytheistic than the Roman Empire ever got. In the real world, you never really had priests dedicated to as *single* god -- at least not if they acknowledged the existence of other gods.

Even more strongly, though, D&D wizards would be flat-out impossible in a truly medieval setting. There was NO educated class except the clergy and, to some extent, the nobility. You could not have a school of wizardry, because there's no rival educational establishment to the church. Now, you could make an interesting pseudomedieval where the scholars in monasteries are wizards and they are the spellcasters of the established church. But it would be pretty far removed from a standard D&D setting.



D&D has pseudomedieval elements pasted on to settings that are really something else. Greyhawk City is flat-out Renaissance, down to being run by the Thieves' Guild, to take one example. Well, Renaissance by way of Fritz Leiber -- Greyhawk has more than a little bit of Lankhmar in it. Oh, sure, you may run into a knight in shiny armor in Greyhawk, but he's not a medieval knight, no matter how much his armor glimmers.

I believe quoting myself once more will be sufficient...

Even though D&D incorporates many cultures and paradoxes that derive from magic and other historical periods, that does not change the fact that D&D is mainly based on the Mediaeval times.

 

[Jimlock]

Some information on Guilds.

 

[Jimlock]

Notre Dame de Paris

The first period of construction from 1163 into the 1240's coincided with the musical experiments of the Notre Dame school.

The cathedral was essentially complete by 1345.

The Middle Ages (adjectival form: medieval or mediæval) is a historical period following the Iron Age, fully underway by the 5th century and lasting to the 15th century



....

 

[kitcik]

You have convinced me that a senior cook should get 2-3sp/day. The scullions get 1sp.

Re the clerk - obviously it's because literate NPCs are rare, so writing ability is a valuable skill. I probably would have the stableboy earn 1sp/day, he gets a lot more free time than the labourer, it evens out. A skilled animal handler gets more.

I am going to roll up a senior cook for [MENTION=85158]Dandu[/MENTION] 's Peasants and Plagues campaign.